Any playwright will tell you: it’s really hard to get to the Humana Festival at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. This playwright will tell you, much to his chagrin, that it’s even harder if you miss your flight. Technically I was actually on time for my flight; I just wasn’t in the right airport. Like a minor character cut from Don DeLillo’s just-this-side-of-unbelievable VALPARAISO, I went to Baltimore-Washington airport instead of Reagan National. Quite a rough start to my journey, I hope you’ll agree.

This is not as silly a mistake as it seems; close, but not quite. I live equidistant from both airports… and, to make matters worse, from Dulles International as well. I’m not exaggerating: BWI is 29.3 miles door-to-door, Dulles is 29.7, and National (if I travel around the Beltway and avoid the city) is 26.5. As a result, I never fly out of the same airport from one trip to the next. Throw in the fact that I was up with my sick 11 month-old son the night before my 8 am flight, which meant leaving the house at 6 am, and you can see how it might happen, can’t you? (Please say yes.)

In many ways, my difficulty getting to Humana is emblematic of the challenges I face as a playwright. I have been, in more ways than one, late to the party. Although I attended Northwestern, a university with a notable drama program, the only visits I made to the theater were to build sets and run light boards and see shows. I majored in poetry and worked as a poet for a decade after I graduated. I didn’t even consider writing a play until I was 33 years old, and though success came quickly when I finally started, I was still several years of experience behind my contemporaries before I even started. My master’s degree wasn’t just from the “wrong” school—I attended the poetically prestigious Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins—it was in the wrong discipline.

Now, at 42, I’m older than I “should” be for an emerging playwright. I’m not “pedigreed” in the right way, either, and I’m still making the adjustment to writing while helping to raise a child, a change that might ideally have come later in my career. Frankly, getting to the Humana Festival feels impossible; getting my son’s diapers changed and getting through my next production—my play BUGGY & TYLER opens in DC in less than two weeks—feels hard enough.

But I can’t dwell: my new flight leaves in a few hours. Must keep pushing on if I’m going to get anywhere… literally and figuratively.

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Things picked up immeasurably right when I landed. The incredibly generous Humana Festival staff was waiting at baggage claim to whisk me into Louisville, and my company on the ride from the airport was none other than Adrien-Alice Hansel, the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s former Director of New Play Development, who moved to DC in November to join the staff of the Studio Theatre. A 15 minute conversation about kids and theater and life in DC was all it took to make me feel less anxious about my first visit . That and (I must admit) dropping my bags off at the hotel before heading to the theater.

I arrived just in time to slip into the back of the crowd at the memorial for Sandy Speer, the former Executive Director of the theater. A veritable parade of folks gave both moving and funny tributes to Speer, about whom I knew very little before I arrived, and everything I heard made me wish I’d known the man. I was, however, just a touch distracted by the fact that sitting not too far away from me was the drop-dead handsome Noah Wyle…at least until he got up to give his own eloquent and moving tribute to Speer, who happened to be his uncle.

After a quick dinner—I have a feeling I’m really going to like Kentucky in that regard—I saw my first show of the weekend: Jordan Harrison’s MAPLE AND VINE. My ticket had me sitting between a New York and LA-based director and an associate artistic director, both of whose names I’ll decline to drop. I had great conversations with both of them… so great, in fact, that it never occurred to me to try to “network” in any way. Luckily, they both asked to read my work of their own accord, and although I’ve been wrong on this front before, they both seemed genuine in doing so. When I’m back in DC, I will have to screw my courage to the sticking place and send them what they asked for.

At intermission, I noticed a good friend across the theater; one huge hug later, we’d agreed to watch the 11 pm performance of THE END together. A brief jaunt back to the hotel to drop off my swag bag—during which I ran into the entire staff of the HotCity Theatre, where I workshopped my play REALS last year, and arranged a get-together for the following afternoon—and my friend and I were seated back in the same theater. His company at an hour during which I would typically be sleeping, if I were at home, was very welcome.

And with that, the first day was done. I don’t know whether I made the most of it—whether I should have introduced myself to more of my fellow Festival-goers, for example, or had some sort of great revelation—but I did what I could.

More tomorrow.